The New York Court Announced the Date of the TON Blocking Case

by Margot Bafta

The U.S. District Court of New York has set a date and time for a hearing on the blocking of the ICO blockchain platform of the Telegram Open Network (TON) initiated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

On October 11, the SEC filed a lawsuit against two offshore companies, Telegram Group Inc. and its sub-company TON Issuer Inc. As the Commission stated, the Durov Brothers Company attracted investments for "various businesses", including TON development. The absence of a companies' and investors' application for registration raised the lawsuit and was considered as a violation of the Securities Act of 1933.

This morning Pavel Durov's team sent a letter to TON investors emphasizing that Telegram had been trying to contact SEC representatives for 18 months to get an explanation about their attitude to the TON project.

Unfortunately, the SEC didn't show any interest in cooperation.

"We were surprised and disappointed that the SEC chose to file the lawsuit under these circumstances, and we disagree with the SEC's legal position", explained Telegram team.

The Manhattan District Court scheduled the hearing for October 24 at 11:00 p.m. local time (October 24 at 19:00 Moscow time). Telegram Group Inc can file a counter-application by October 18.

The are approximately 16 days left until the Day X. However, there is an interesting fact which can cause resonance. The TON project representatives admitted that the $1.7 billion of collected investments are not necessary to be returned. As it was specified in the leaked purchase and sale contract of tokens Gram, there is a clause on force-majeure circumstances, which mentions the actions of state agencies, namely the legislation or regulations, as well as the actions of any regulators.

Anyway, Durov’s team promises to fix the launch date and to do their best to regulate the issue respecting interests of relevant parties.

The Blocking of TON project acquires more and more talks and details. Today several hours ago, investors unveiled the latest update about their intentions. Due to the SEC decisions and scarce negotiations, the inner circles of Telegram Group talk about postponing the launch of the TON and make it happen in a six month or a year.